NCAA Basketball: 2018 Christmas wish list for top mid-major conferences

MAC wish: Buffalo remains hot

It would be easy to regurgitate my stance on the Mountain West with the Mid-American but replace Nevada with Buffalo: Let’s hope that someone knocks off Buffalo en route to the MAC title so they can send two teams to the dance.

But it’s not that easy.

At first glance, sure, the Mid-American looks pretty balanced.  With just two teams currently at .500 (Bowling Green & Eastern Michigan) and the rest on the right side of that number, one could say it’s a pretty talented conference.  Fair enough.

But then you do some digging.

Just two of those teams, Buffalo and Toledo, fall in the KenPom Top-100.  Toldeo, at 9-1, has played just one Top-100 program win in UC-Irvine and holds a loss to 4-6 Wright State.  The rest of their non-conference play either is or has been against teams ranked outside of the KenPom Top-110 or have been non-Division I opponents.

Buffalo struck at the right time with their upset of West Virginia, who at the time were viewed as a legit threat.  Since then, WVU has fallen on hard times and despite being 6-3, hold no marquee wins.  Other key wins for Buffalo have been Southern Illinois and San Francisco.

Good.  But not great.

With Marquette and Syracuse waiting in the wings, Buffalo could be on shaky grounds despite their ranking.  Should the KenPom projection hold true and Buffalo loses to these teams, what does that mean for their stock?

With the watered-down due to hindsight win over West Virginia, Buffalo could become just another bubble team and are in situations where they have to avoid bad losses.  And the Mid-American could be a field of landmines for them.

The Bulls are very good, and by far the best team in the MAC, but they should hope their magic stays in tact and win the league outright if the Mid-American wants to have a shot at a good showing on the national stage in March.